The painting at the diner shines.
The Northward view of Times Square
seems recent
at first glance.
The glint on the cars,
the sparkling lights,
the Broadway shows,
the bright ads…
it all smacks of the modernist of days

until you look closer
and realize that Cats has closed
and JVC no longer makes tapes.
Mad About You is off the air
and Kodak probably doesn’t sell much film anymore.

Even the cars,
upon closer inspection,
begin to seem somewhat dated,
a bit blockier and more uniform
than you’d expect on the road today.

The painting,
now that you think about it,
is flaking at the edges,
gaining veins in strange locations.
The piece is old
and you
are ancient.
Old enough, at least,
to mistake the history presented before you
as somehow a variation
of current events.